You are on page 1of 67

RETAILER'S GUIDE TO

THE

SOCIAL COMMERCE CHANNELS


An Analysis of Retail Marketing on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Table of Contents

What Social Commerce Channel Development Means for Retailers 3

Pinterest: Organic & Paid Marketing 7

Facebook: Organic & Paid Marketing 27

Instagram: Organic & Paid Marketing 43

Twitter: Organic & Paid Marketing 53

Final Takeaways: How to Drive Traffic & Increase ROI 61

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


3

What Social Commerce


Channel Development
Means for Retailers
Social advertising is here to stay, but is your company making the most of
the marketing opportunity that these networks have created?

While some brands already have a well-developed social strategy, almost


all retailers recognize social marketing as a channel of unrealized potential.

1.5 Billion Monthly


Social networks are the hub where consumers come to “hang out” online.
Active Users
When people gather and talk, conversations about products are bound to
flourish.

More organic and paid social commerce advertising and marketing


opportunities are available now than at any other time in history.

The four social networks we are going to focus on in this whitepaper―


Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter―represent over 1.5 billion
monthly active users.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 4

The concept of using social networks to denote user-generated content on social platforms
and ultimately spread advice from individuals on where to buy goods and services has
skyrocketed, specifically in the vertical of retail.

Social commerce, specifically paid advertising, now falls onto the plate of Marketing Managers,
along with management of traditional eCommerce shopping channels.

Although social media may not be the first place people go to shop, it has become a source of
rapid customer acquisition thanks to advanced targeting capabilities that help to complete the
loop for consumers with an interest in your company, brand or type of products.

Social platforms help companies:

Engage Customers with their Provide Incentives for customers Expand Their Targeting Build on a Competitive
brands relating to their social to return back to their site. capabilities to platforms where Platform where similar groups,
behaviors (posts they like, share customers can engage to talk pages, brands, products are present,
or what groups they associate about the brands that they like allowing customers more options
their social accounts with). or dislike and why. than ever to decide which products
they will purchase.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 5

There are countless social media platforms, but we’ll narrow our focus to 4 of the most
popular channels in this white paper:

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Instagram

We’ll look at how each one varies when it comes to demographics and usage, plus how
they differ when it comes to organic and paid growth.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Pinterest:
Organic & Paid Marketing

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 7

Pinterest: Organic Marketing


Pinterest describes itself as “the visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save
creative ideas.” If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, it has taken the concept of pinboards and
brought it online, along with a social component that makes it massively popular.

Pinterest users create “boards” and then “Pin” interesting things that they find across the
web to one of their boards. Any Pinterest member can “follow” any other Pinterest member’s
boards to see any new Pins that are added to the board, as long as the board isn’t private.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 8

Since its inception, Pinterest has grown and transitioned from just a social network into more
of a homepage for finding cool things on the web. Whether you’re looking for gift ideas,
recipes, the latest fashions, inspiration for your wedding, or a crafty home improvement
project, chances are you can find something you’ll love by searching Pinterest.

Essentially, Pinterest is no longer just a social network―it has


become a powerful product discovery tool

This key distinction means Pinterest has a lot in common with another internet giant that is
more known for driving commerce than being social: Google.

As a marketer, this means that you now have access to another active community of people
on the web who are specifically searching for things they are interested in. Even better, they’re
searching with purchase intent. According to a recent study, 87% of people have actually
purchased products that were originally inspired by a Pinterest search.

Essentially, Pinterest now serves as what we like to call a search to purchase engine for
today’s online shoppers. The same study cited above states that:

“Active Pinners were 47% more likely to experience a major life event in the next 6 months.
Whether consumers are getting married, buying a home, remodeling or redecorating, having
a baby, buying a car, taking a vacation, or simply planning a party or dinner for the night,
they are more receptive to new ideas and new brands.”

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 9

Not only is Pinterest a powerful product discovery tool, it’s growth has been explosive. On
September 17, 2015, The New York Times said that Pinterest surpassed 100 million monthly
active members. In July 2011, Pinterest had just 1 million total users. That’s over 10,000%
growth in the last four years. Breaking this down by channel, we learned this year that
80% of Pinterest traffic comes from mobile and that 71% of overall Pinterest traffic is female.

AddShoppers’ network stats show that Pinterest’s impact on eCommerce is growing quickly
as well. From 2013 to 2015, Pinterest went from driving 34% of all traffic to eCommerce sites
to 55%. All time and across all verticals, Pinterest traffic converts at 0.39% on average with a
$148.47 average order value.

Best Practices
1. Pinning Fundamentals

Because images are everything on Pinterest, let’s go straight to the source for tips on optimal
photography for Pins. Pinterest suggests that brands consider these 3 crucial aspects when
photographing for Pins:

1 Good lighting

2 Objects clear and in focus

3 Portrait is better than landscape

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 10

The Pinterest Team also provides three contextual guidelines for capturing the most effective
photos possible:

Clean and simple product shots

Give it context with other “supporting” items

Show it in action

What about the best size and dimensions for images


on Pinterest?

Obviously, once you’ve taken the time and effort to produce beautiful pictures of your
products, you want them to display as well as they possibly can on Pinterest. Let’s get into the
nitty gritty with Pinterest’s image size and ratio requirements so you know exactly what size to
make your photos for optimal Pinning.

First, let’s cover the basics:

• In Pinterest’s grid layout, all Pins are rendered at 235 pixels wide

• They recommend keeping your photos to an aspect ratio between 2:3 and 1:3.5

• The maximum width Pins are displayed when fully expanded is 736 pixels

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 11

So, what does this mean for your team when editing photos
for Pinterest?

In plain English, here are the takeaways you need to know for optimal image display
on Pinterest:

All Pins should be 736px wide, if possible

If you must, Pins can be as little as 600px wide

The best range for height is anything between 1104 and 2576px

What About Landscape images?

You can do landscape images if you want (images that are wider than they are tall). For best
results, keep your width at 736px and the height can be anything greater than 200px.

736 pixels x 200 pixels +200px

736px

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 12

2. Product vs Lifestyle Pins

It’s a dilemma many brands have faced: Should you post product shots or lifestyle images
to Pinterest?

The short answer is you can (and should) do both. Here are our guidelines for these two
related but slightly nuanced types of Pins:

Product Shots

For product shots, a good rule of thumb is to think less about how the Pin looks on your
brand’s boards and more about what it needs to look like to inspire action when Pinners see
it (which will often be on other boards). Whether that action is liking it, repinning it to a user’s
own boards, or clicking through to your website to learn more, any interaction with your Pins is
a success for your brand.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 13

Lifestyle Images

For lifestyle images, include any and all look-book images or other lifestyle photos that your
brand has available. You can even engage your influencers by asking them to submit their
own snaps wearing or using their purchases to their own Pinterest boards. Then, build out a
special board just for customer photos and repin their Pins to your board. This engages your
customers in a fun way and strengthens their relationship with your brand.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 14

3. Pin Descriptions

The description of your pin is almost as important as the image. There is a 500 character
maximum, however this doesn’t mean you should try to cram every detail into your
descriptions. Use it to entice viewers enough to save the Pin and click through to your
eCommerce store to check it out―don’t worry about selling it yet. Think of the description as a
preview where you highlight the best & most important feature of the product.

As mentioned previously, Pinterest is now used as a search engine, so instead of simply


describing the product, try your best to naturally include keywords that a shopper might use
when searching for products.

4. Use Rich Pins On Your Site

We recommend integrating with Rich Pins so your Pins are more useful for potential
customers. When Rich Pins are enabled, Pinterest will include information about your products
each time they are pinned such as product name and price.

Keep in mind, this affects all Pins from your site, including Pins from customers, so it has a
much larger reach than just your own Pinterest boards!

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 15

Integrating Rich Pins involves fairly technical changes to your product page template, so you’ll
likely need help from your development team. You can find the documentation here.

There are two different methods to implementing Rich Pins (detailed in the documentation
linked above):

• Open Graph tags

• Schema.org

Which Method Should You implement Into Your eCommerce Store?

Honestly, in an ideal world you will want to integrate both methods. Open Graph tags are also
used by Facebook in a similar fashion to pull product data into Facebook shares. Schema.org
tags are crawled by Google to include rich snippet data in your search results so your products
receive more clicks from Google search.

However, if you have to choose one we would advise integrating Schema.org tags because
Google tends to drive visitors that are closer to making a purchase than Facebook traffic.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 16

Pinterest: Paid Advertising


Promoted Pins are similar to organic pins, with the exception that retailers must pay to have
them seen by more Pinterest users. Typically, these native ad units perform just as well, if not
even better than organic pins, expanding visibility to relevant search results, category feeds
and the home feed. Promoted Pins are created through the Pinterest Ads Manager.

What advertisers should know about Promoted Pins:

• Promoted Pins are only available in the US at this time.

• You need a business account to use Promoted Pins. Sign up or convert your existing account
to get access.

• Right now, you can only promote Pins from your profile, so make sure to add Pins and
boards before you start.

• To access the Pinterest Ads Manager, visit your profile.

• There’s no minimum cost. The amount you pay varies on your targeting audience and bid,
and depending on your goals, you only pay when someone clicks or engages with your ad.

• You cannot use promoted pins as Buyable Pins. If you don’t have access to Promoted Pins
yet - you can join the waitlist.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 17

Retailers Can Use Promoted Pins To:

Raise Brand Awareness

Promote Engagement Campaigns

Drive Traffic Campaigns

Raise Brand Awareness

As we discussed in the Pinterest Organic Marketing section above, pinners are typically people
actively seeking items, brands, products and other ideas to help inspire events they are
planning for such as a wedding or baby shower.

When retailers opt into reserving premium inventory on Pinterest, this gives them access to top
placements along with desired audience targets and greater reach. When a user saves a Promoted
Pin to their own board―the pin impression will remain long after the campaign has ended.

According to Pinterest, most Promoted Pins experience an average 5% bump in earned


impressions, 30 days after their campaign has ended.

Promote Engagement Campaigns

Similar to organic Pins, when a user saves a Promoted Pin it is typically because they have the
intention of using the image, brand or product for future plans.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 18

According to Pinterest, Promoted Pins see engagement rates of 2 to 5% higher than the
industry average. Retailers can create “engagement campaigns” to help users figure out what
they want to do next. Retailers only pay when people engage with their Promoted Pin (closeup,
repin and / or click).

PRO-TIP: Retailers should run an engagement campaign if their primary goal is to reach a wider
audience on Pinterest. This type of pin campaign will not direct them to a website and should not be
confused with Buyable Pins, which allow purchases to be made within the Pinterest app.

Drive Traffic Campaigns

Traffic campaigns differ because they target users who are ready to leave Pinterest and
start taking action―beyond the planning process, these types of users are ready to make a
purchase. Promoted Pins drive traffic back to the retailer’s website so they can inform Pinners
about their products and/or services. Marketers only pay when people click on their Promoted
Pin to visit their website.

PRO-TIP: Retailers should run traffic campaigns if their primary goal is to drive sales
to their business website. These types of pins will direct browsers back to a website to make a
purchase. These should also not be confused with Buyable Pins, which allow purchases to be
made within the Pinterest app.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 19

Best Practices
Many of the best practices mentioned in the “Pinterest Organic Marketing” section can also be
applied to Promoted Pins. Clear images and relevant content will always be considered a
best practice.

For “paid” pins retailers should also keep in mind:

1. Campaign Structure

There’s two ways to set up your campaign structure depending on your goals.

One Campaign, One Pin

This strategy gives retailers more control over optimization, since the budgets are set at the
campaign level. Reporting may be more streamlined, since there are not as many layers to
review and delivery is still based on bid and creative relevance.

One Campaign, Multiple Pins With the Same Target

Pinterest’s system selects the top performing creative to compete in the auction. This is a great
structure for A/B testing creative. It’s possible that if a Pin is constantly being outperformed by
other Pins, it will have very small distribution.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 20

2. Leverage Google Analytics Data

For Promoted Pins, utilize your Google Analytics / Google AdWords data and try to keep your
CPCs around the same amount. Overall, most retailers are going to see lower CPCs, at
least for now.

3. Opt for Rich Pins

Keep in mind that regardless of which structure you choose, there’s no frequency cap in the
auction. This means you should be thoughtful about creative and targeting, so you don’t show
Pinners the same Pins over and over. With your Promoted Pins, you choose from two different
ad formats.

Standard Pins are a beautiful, native way to reach your audience

Rich Pins provide extra details right on the Pin to make them more useful

PRO-TIP: In our experience, we’ve seen stronger conversion rates for Rich Pins―due to the additional
upfront information available to shoppers.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 21

4. Focus on Creative

Retailers are also encouraged to showcase multiple products that will display a wide range
of styles to attract Pinners with different tastes. Additional detailed descriptions and calls to
action are considered a best pinning practice. According to Pinterest, tasteful branding shows
Pinners you’re trustworthy, and text makes your Pin more helpful to browsers.

5. Test Keywords

As noted in the Pinterest Organic Marketing section, it’s important to monitor your keywords.
Especially if you are not experiencing conversions or a lift in traffic. This helps Pinterest show
your Pin to the right audience in the right place. Depending on your goals, we recommend to
test out broad and specific terms and compare data.

Broad terms let you cast a wide net and drive more volume—they help make sure you stay
top of mind. Specific terms may not have as wide a reach, but they usually do a better job of
getting a pinners attention when they’re ready to act.

Testing new keywords and creative is going to be the best way to determine your ads success.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 22

6. Track Reporting

Use conversion tracking to attribute actions that people take on your site back to a Pinterest action.

Retailers should monitor the three types of conversions including:

Page Visits Signups Checkouts

Additionally retailers should monitor the attribution windows for the four types of activities on
Pinterest including views, clicks, repins and closeups. With cross device reporting, retailers can
see the path that Pinners take when they convert on their site.

Our initial analysis of the Promoted Pins program is that we have seen fairly low CPCs due to
the fact that the competition has not yet scaled. Although early in development, we consider
this an ideal time to jump on board and begin testing Promoted Pins, especially within the
retail landscape.

Our early results also indicate low conversion rates but high traffic volume because Pinterest,
by nature, is still considered predominantly a browsing site. We anticipate this will continue to
evolve as Pinterest develops more user-friendly eCommerce tools for retailers and consumers.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 23

Buyable Pins
Buyable Pins are currently available on iOS and Android in the U.S., and allow Pinterest
browsers to make a purchase without having to leave the Pinterest app.

According to Pinterest, when a user spots a Pin with a blue price, that is a signal they can buy
it directly from the app. If they are searching for something specific, (including color) they can
also filter to hone in on the right pin.

When users are ready to make a purchase, they simply click “Buy it” and pay with Apple Pay or
a credit card. Once a user has entered their personal info, Pinterest will store it so they don’t
have to punch it in again.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 24

Pinterest Paid Advertising Requirements

Currently Pinterest is working with 5 commerce platforms for integration including:

Bigcommerce

Demandware

IBM Commerce

Magento

Shopify

According to our in-house experts, early results reveals similar data in Buyable Pins and
Promoted Pins including low CPCs, high volume and low conversions.

Pinterest has made significant advancements to make the platform more scalable for large
retailers and we anticipate the areas of paid marketing will continue to grow in 2016.

For example, in November 2015, Pinterest introduced a bulk upload tool―another


advancement in their efforts to promote buyable pins and encourage retailers to invest in
social commerce.

Marketers now have the ability to create multiple promoted posts from scratch without having
to use Pins that have already been pinned. Essentially, it gives retailers the ability to build an
excel doc with the information available in the feed and increase the amount of Pins uploaded
at one time.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 25

Before bulk uploads, retailers and marketers had to promote one pin at a time
(loading in keywords, bids, etc. on an individual level), now with the latest tool―retailers can
do this in mass.

PRO-TIP: For the initial set up, both Promoted Pins and Buyable Pins do not require a tracking pixel.
You can use UTM parameters (appropriate tagging is a must).

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Facebook:
Organic & Paid Marketing

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


27

Facebook: Organic Marketing


While we categorize Pinterest as more of a shopping engine, Facebook is a true social network.
New features are added frequently to make it easier to post how you feel, what you’re eating
or watching, where you are, as well as photos, videos, and GIFs. Now you can even make
phone calls and shop on Facebook.

Although there are so many ways to communicate on Facebook, users tend to mainly interact
with those they know personally. This is a trait that makes Facebook different from networks
like Pinterest and Instagram where users commonly follow people they don’t know. Because
most members’ networks on Facebook consist of other people they know, there’s a trust factor
that Facebook has that the other networks do not. They even have an “authentic name policy”
in place to combat fake accounts and keep it more “real.”

Because Facebook is a highly personal network, we recommend strategizing around driving


more conversations about your brand and products on Facebook. Your ultimate goal should
revolve around turning your existing audience into brand influencers who will share your
brand across their personal networks. This sharing activity will be low in volume but high in
social proof―a high-converting source of word of mouth referral traffic.

• 42% Male 58% Female, 87% use Facebook on their mobile devices, As of the third quarter of
2015, Facebook had 1.55 billion monthly active users.

• Facebook Stats from our network: 4.91% of total clicks, 4.07% conv rate, $117.06 average
order value (all time, all categories)

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 28

One exercise that we find valuable to generate more word of mouth activity on Facebook
about your brand is to examine people’s primary motivations for sharing. Review the following
points and think about how your brand can create campaigns that tie into each motivation:

Why do people share on Facebook?

Display What You Care About & Interested Show What You Are Feeling & Express Yourself To Keep In Touch With Those You Don’t See Face
Examples: Tervis Tumblers, Katy Perry, Examples: Feeling excited, watching Top Chef, to Face Regularly
Paleo Recipes celebrating Back to the Future Day Examples: HS Debate Team, Great Aunt that lives in
Boca, Roomie Studying Abroad

Be Included & Belong to a Group To Offer Support for a Cause or Person Share Things You Know Your Friends Will Enjoy
Examples: Bacon Lovers of America, Musicians Examples: Re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger for Examples: This can be anything from that funny cat
Coalition of Ottawa, Salt Lake City Online Yard Sale Governor of California, The Humane Society of the video you just watched to a product you think your
United States, Stop Global Warming friends will love.

Gather Feedback From Your Friends Share Life Events, Whether Big or Small Coordinate Events
Examples: “Do you think color A or color B paint Examples: Graduation, new car, new house, Examples: We’re having a cookout this weekend.
would look best in our living room?” engagement, marriage, promotion, new outfit, etc. Come by our house at 1pm!

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 29

Facebook Best Practices

1. Facebook Basics: Images and Data

What’s the ideal image size for products shared to Facebook? Luckily, it’s a little simpler than
Pinterest. The best image size for Facebook shares to display optimally in the News Feed is
1200 x 627px. If you need to provide smaller images, you can go as low as 470 x 246px.

In the last section on Pinterest Best Practices, we just said we would choose Schema.org tags
over Open Graph tags in favor of Google. Facebook uses Open Graph tags in a similar way to
Pinterest to provide rich information to product shares like the price and description of the
product. Now you see why we also recommend having both if possible.

2. Shares vs. Likes

Are you debating whether it’s more valuable to encourage your influencers to Share or Like
your brand’s products or pages? Data shows that Shares are clearly more valuable than Likes
when it comes to driving revenue.

In our 2014 Social Commerce Breakdown report, we found that Facebook shares were worth,
on average, $0.80 in revenue―340% more valuable than Likes! In addition, traffic coming from
shared products converted 544% higher than traffic from Liked products.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 30

3. Generating Maximum Sharing Activity

Are you struggling to gain enough interaction with your Facebook sharing buttons? Try
incentivizing sharing from your site. For example, run a “share for free shipping” campaign―
it’s a great way to boost social word of mouth sharing plus drive conversions at the same time.

Another excellent way to encourage sharing is by asking your shoppers to share their purchase
to their social networks. At the time of purchase, shoppers are 30% more likely to share, so
use this to your advantage.

4. Make The Most Of Your Influencers

Don’t forget to keep track of and interact with your top Facebook influencers―individuals that
share often on Facebook and drive sales from their sharing activity. They can be a valuable
asset in expanding your reach. Try contacting them with a mutually beneficial opportunity to
share their relationship with your brand. You could incentivize them with exclusive deals, early
access to new products, or a special coupon code that they can share with their network.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


31

Facebook: Paid Advertising


Using Facebook Ads helps retailers reach their local and extended
audience, everyday and everywhere. Facebook advertising is a must
have for any business or brand trying to engage with new Facebook Ad Clicks
(or existing) customers. are increasing 70%
YOY and ad CTR are
Understanding the Facebook market and it’s advertising platform’s best increasing 160%
practices can help retailers maximize their presence on the social media,
build credibility, and increase revenue.

In a recent study, it was determined Facebook ad clicks are increasing


70% year over year, and ad click-through rates are increasing 160%. This
is great news for Facebook advertisers.

The lowest hanging fruit for advertisers will be remarketing (retargeting


people in your existing sales funnel).

The conversion type retailers opt into will largely depend on who they
target and the goals of their campaign. According to our in-house
Facebook experts, approximately 98% of retailers are going to have to
pay if they want to see good results, but that is not to outrule the power
of an organic post (that can still go viral).

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 32

When it comes to paid Facebook advertising, retailers have a number of options. For this white
paper we will focus on Facebook Dynamic Product Ads and it’s retargeting capabilities.

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads are designed to help businesses advertise their entire product
catalog across all consumer devices. With Product Ads, retailers have another avenue to promote
inventory, while Facebook users can discover more relevant products in a native setting.

From awareness to purchase, advertisers can cater to the user’s journey through a variety of
targeting options including:

Dynamic Product Serving


Automatically serves product ads based off of the retailer’s most relevant inventory. This
automatic targeting is based off of user interests, locations and more.

Manual Product Selections


Manually serve product ads based off a chosen product segment. This targeting option
allows the retailer to feature, for example, their best selling items.

Multi-Product Ads
Enable businesses to showcase three products within a single ad unit, on desktop or
mobile. Each product highlighted will have its own image, description and click target.

It’s no surprise that display-based product advertising has been an increasingly effective
revenue-driver for retailers in recent years. According to research from Q4 in Adobe Digital
Index, Google advertisers decreased spending on text-based ads by 6 percent and spent 47
percent more on visually engaging Google Shopping ads year-over-year.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 33

The introduction of Facebook Product Ads falls directly in line with the
trend of display-based product advertising. Although it seems unlikely
Google Shopping will suffer in response to Facebook’s latest development,
it does warrant a new conversation within retail organizations.

Facebook Best Practices

Recommended Image Size


1. High Quality Photos
Clicks to Website 1200 x 628 pixels

Retailers should only use attractive lifestyle photos to create the best Website Conversions 1200 x 628 pixels
Facebook ads such as bright product imagery or videos. Photos account for
93% of user engagement activity on Facebook. Page/Post Engagement 1200 x 900 pixels

Page Likes 1200 x 444 pixels


Different ad objectives may recommend different sizes. If retailers want
their ad to be eligible to show in all of the different formats, including App Installs 1200 x 628 pixels

desktop News Feed, mobile News Feed and the right column, then they App Engagement 1200 x 628 pixels
should use the recommended image size for their objective (as seen in the
chart below). Local Awareness 1200 x 628 pixels

Event Responses 1200 x 444 pixels


If the image is larger or smaller than the dimensions specified in the
Offer Claims 1200 x 628 pixels
Facebook Ads Guide, the program will automatically re-sized to fit in the ad.
Animated or flash images are not supported at this time. Video Views 1200 x 675 pixels

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 34

2. Call to Action

Retailers should include a call to action within the first 90 characters to


guide customers to what they want them to do. For example: “Check out
our latest SALE. All items 50% off.”

3. Combat Ad Fatigue

Retailers should refresh their ad creative every 1 to 2 weeks to ensure


the best performance. According to Facebook, when everyone in the
target audience has already seen an ad too many times, it becomes more
expensive to achieve the desirable results.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 35

4. Important Content First

Retailers should include the most important content in their post within the first 90 characters.
For example: If a retailer wants to get visits directly to their site, they should link to it upfront.
Shorter posts have been found to receive 60% more engagement―so in many cases less is
more as long as the priority content is made visible to users.

5. Boost Important Posts

Boosting posts ensures a retailer’s most important messages are seen by their fans and
friends in a local area. Boost posts about sales during the holidays to get in the news feeds of
current customers and use targeting to expand reach to new ones.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 36

6. Use Facebook Offers

Facebook Offers allow retailers to promote special discounts to Facebook fans and non-fans
in their local area. Drive in-store sales by giving an audience a special reason to come in and
make a purchase.

7. Tag ad URLs

Each ad should have UTM variables for Google Analytics. These can be pasted in using
Facebook’s tag manager or they can be manually pasted into the ad URL field. Analyzing
campaigns within Google Analytics gives retailers a better idea of how their ads are
performing and find out what ads are performing well and what ads are not.

8. Test Campaigns for Mobile & Desktop

Retailers that advertise on mobile and desktop should split campaigns to test each
performance. Through the Power Editor, retailers can set up different Ad Groups
including Mobile and Desktop.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 37

9. Identify Target Audience

Retailers should always keep in mind who their best current customers are and use Facebook’s
targeting options to reach other similar audiences. Retailers can choose an audience at the
ad set level.

According to Facebook, choosing a relevant audience is important because this means


the ad will be shown to people who match the selected criteria including location, gender,
demographics and more.

Facebook offers a range of audience targeting options including:

Custom Audiences

Retailers can create or select a Custom Audience that they can use with other targeting
options. A Custom Audience will let you find your offline audience among people who use
Facebook. According to Marin, if you target your ad by a custom audience rather than by a
category or interest, cost-per-click is 14% lower, and cost-per-conversion is 64%. Retailers can
learn more about Custom Audiences here.

Location

Enter the name of one or more countries, states, provinces, cities and zip codes (US only) or
post codes (countries outside of the US) to show ads in those locations. Retailers can use any
of the choices in any combination. After selecting a location, use the arrow on the right to
choose a radius from that location or exclude a location that falls within the selected area.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 38

Demographics

Within Age & Gender retailers can select the minimum and maximum age of the people who
will find their ad relevant. Under Gender retailers should choose “All” unless they only want to
target men or women. Keep in mind that some people don’t specify their gender on Facebook,
so the only way to reach everyone is to select All.

Interests

Retailers can reach their audience based on interests shared on their Timelines, apps they
use, Pages they liked and other activities on and off of Facebook. Interests may also factor in
demographics such as age, gender and location.

Behaviors

Retailers can reach their audience based on digital activities including what devices they use,
past or intended purchases, and travel.

Education

To target education levels, retailers can set targets for specific schools, fields of study or
specific graduation years in their ad.

Connections

Connections targeting helps control whether an ad is shown to people who already have a
connection with a retailer on Facebook. For example, people who have liked a retailer’s Page,
joined an event or who have used the retailer’s app in the past 30 days.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 39

Retailers can use connections targeting to show an ad to anyone, only people who have a
connection, people who don’t have a connection with you, both of those groups, or friends of
people who have a connection.

Retailers can also use connections targeting for any Page, event or app they are the admin of,
even if it’s not what they are advertising. To do this, click Advanced connection targeting under
Connections in the targeting section and type the names of your Facebook Page, event or app.

Partner Categories

Some advertisers have access to 1st party data and can activate that data through a mobile
app, pixel or by uploading a data file to create a custom audience. Partner categories will help
retailers target their ads to people who have key attributes. Partner categories will also let
retailers target people based on their activities offline, like purchases they’ve made.

When creating an audience in either Power Editor or ad creation, retailers will find different partner
category targeting options in the More Demographics, Behaviors and More Categories sections.

Facebook Paid Advertising Requirements

Before you can set up your Facebook Dynamic Product Ad, retailers will need to install:

Facebook Business Manager

Facebook Retargeting Pixel

Custom Audience Pixel with a Dynamic Element (see below)

Product Catalog and Upload a Feed

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 40

Setting up a Facebook campaign depends on your goal.

For more brand awareness, retailers should focus on engaging content and what gets your
consumers talking.

For direct response conversions, retailers should focus on convergence, retargeting, and
building off lookalike audiences.

PRO-TIP: It's advisable to have one campaign for each of the above goals.

If Your Goal is: Acquiring Engagement & More Likes

• Be human and engaging: put content that people have an opinion about or want to Like

• Engaging content builds community on your Page and the more engagement, the more it
shows up on the News Feed and is sticky.

If Your Goal is: Driving Traffic to the Website

If your goal is to send maximum traffic for leads/email addresses then choose click to website
as your objective when setting up. If the goal is to direct conversions, choose drive conversions
to your website as your objective when setting up your Facebook campaign.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 41

In our experience, the best ad format for Conversions are Carousel Ads.

PRO-TIP: Carousel Ads work because they take consumers straight


to the product URL.

In our early findings, we saw good conversion rates and CPCs were relatively cheap. Now, we are
seeing an increase in CPCs as more competitors target Facebook as an eCommerce platform.

We expect CPCs will continue to rise as Facebook advances their targeting capabilities for
retailers into 2016 and beyond.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Instagram:
Organic & Paid Marketing

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 43

Instagram: Organic Marketing


Initially launched as a much broader failed app called Burbn, Instagram found success by
keeping things simple. They stripped everything out of the app except for the photo sharing
functionality and quickly found their groove. The concept is simple: snap a photo on your
smartphone, add a filter to make it look pretty, and share to your followers.

Acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram was the fastest growing social network in 2014 and
now boasts over 400 million members. As for its core essence, there are no surprises here:
visual impact is clearly the star on Instagram and the caption plays a supporting role.

For brands, there are a couple caveats we must mention before talking about Instagram strategy:

Currently, the ONLY way to share to Instagram is through a mobile device


1
(smartphone or tablet) using their app. This means people cannot directly share
to Instagram from your website, or even from your mobile app if you have one.

So which devices are supported? As of this writing, Instagram has apps for iOS,
Android, and Windows devices.

Instagram does not allow hyperlinks in captions. You are only allowed one hyperlink in
2 your bio, which makes linking to products or pages on your site from Instagram difficult.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 44

Now, after understanding Instagram’s limitations, let’s look at some strategies that you can use
to build your Instagram presence. Here are a few different ways most brands utilize Instagram
currently―you can use any or all of these strategies if they make sense for your brand identity.

The “Social Lookbook” approach

This strategy works great for apparel, accessory, and home & garden brands. You can think
of it as a place to showcase your best and most eye-catching lifestyle images, and Instagram
can become another channel for distributing your seasonal lookbooks. Two great examples of
brands that primarily use this strategy are American Eagle and J.Crew.

The “Visual News” approach

Another excellent way to use Instagram is to turn your company’s news and events into clever,
engaging mini-stories that can be captured in a photo. For example, show off new product
launches, share photos from a recent fashion show, create excitement by teasing sneak
previews of upcoming products, or simply highlight special events, awards, and promotions
within your company.

The “User Generated Content” approach

Lastly, showcasing photos that customers have shared to Instagram (called “regramming”) is a
great way to add social proof to your Instagram feed and help. A great example of a brand that
frequently regrams photos from customers is GoPro.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 45

Instagram Best Practices

Make Your Photos Awesome

Like Pinterest, Instagram is all about the photo so it is an absolute must to have beautiful,
quality images that make an impact. Don’t shy away from additional free photo editing apps.
These can “save” some snaps that you might have thought weren’t worth posting.

Use Hashtags (but don’t go crazy)

While hashtags are obsolete on Pinterest, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of
hashtags on Instagram. Images that include hashtags get more likes than images that do
not. This is because hashtags allow Instagrammers to quickly find what they are looking for,
resulting in exposure for your brand to new likes and followers.

However, don’t use too many hashtags. No one likes the Instagram account that always
includes 50 hashtags in every post.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 46

Include Your Followers

Want to further increase your engagement on Instagram? Start a conversation to challenge


your followers. Here are some suggestions for how to maximize interaction with your
Instagram Posts and potential examples of how some brands could put them into action:

Ask a Question Directly on the Have a Head-to-Head Challenge Give Directions or Show a
Image With Text “How To” Video

Don’t Hold Back at Events … LIVE Emphasize What Makes Your Product
Post EVERYTHING Special or Unique/Show the Details

As always, don’t forget to offer incentives for people to post photos and videos of “unboxing,”
modeling, or using your product on Instagram. Comment on their post with a special coupon
code just for Instagrammers that tag and post their purchases.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 47

Instagram: Paid Advertising


Instagram has become one of the largest social media platforms, gathering more than 300
million users in less than 5 years. Thanks to Instagram’s enhanced apps and buy buttons,
advertisers can finally leverage these users and capitalize on a profitable marketing opportunity.

Instagram welcomed advertisers to the platform in 2013, but their recent targeting capabilities
now make it easier than ever for users to “shop now”, “install now” or “sign up” while browsing
their favorite interests, hobbies and pictures.

Because these ads are powered by Facebook’s Ad Manager, this also opens up Instagram
advertisers to Facebook’s robust demographic data and retargeting capabilities.

While the intent on Instagram wasn’t initially to shop, like many other platforms such as
Facebook, the social media application has become another channel for retailers to pitch their
products to interested buyers.

Instagram paid advertising focuses on 3 main areas:

1 Expanding ad offerings to include action-oriented formats

2 Enable more targeting capabilities

3 Make it easier for businesses large and small to buy ad space on Instagram

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 48

Working with Facebook, Instagram’s paid ads enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram
based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their
own customers.

Thanks to Instagram’s buy out by Facebook for 1 billion dollars in 2012, the platform, which
previously only had access to target ads based on age, gender and country will now be able
to leverage more specific demographics including interest data based on email addresses
provided by the business.

Visually, the ads look comfortable within the application and streamline nicely along with
images of friends, travel, food and hobbies (as seen below).

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 49

Instagram Best Practices

Multiple Images

Retailers can now create carousel ads (multiple images) through their Facebook Manager.
Previously, retailers could only feature one video or one image. As far as we know―this
feature is still in beta at the moment.

Avoid Wasted Ad Spend

Additionally, Instagram has changed their layout. Before, a user could click on an Instagram
ad and was brought directly to a retailer’s site. Unfortunately, this often resulted in wasted ad
spend since the majority of Instagram users operate through the mobile app and would click
on an ad by accident. Now, when you click on an image the original image blurs and a pop out
appears. If you click again - this will bring you to the retailer’s site.

Avoid Suggested Bid

Similar to Facebook, you should never use the suggested bid amount since this price is
typically inflated. You want to start with a more conservative bid (we’ve seen an average of
.40 per click).

Creative hashtags

We’ve seen a strong response from creative hashtags. Just like in organic advertising, paid
advertising can utilize hashtags to help capture the attention of users.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 50

Instagram Paid Advertising Requirements

Essentially, the setup process for Instagram is fairly simple if you already have your paid
Facebook advertising platform in place.

Below we outline the 3 steps to setup paid advertising on Instagram:

Facebook Business Manager Settings


1
Go to Pages (left side of navigation) > click the Facebook URL to go to the
business page

Facebook Business Page


2
Go Settings on the right hand side of the page. Once settings select, you should
see on the left hand side Instagram Ads.

Instagram Ads
3
Connect Business Instagram Account in Facebook

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 51

Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t have a pixel installed just for Instagram itself, so there is
still some debate over how to attribute conversions (Facebook vs. Instagram). This is a
developing area for our team as we continue to explore the advancing benefits of paid
advertising through Instagram’s platform.

Although it’s still early, so far we have seen low conversions, low volume and average CPCs for
Instagram paid advertising. The success of your paid Instagram advertising is very dependent
on your goals.

If you have low spend you can still target a specific audience, versus if you are trying to gain
exposure for your brand name but have less of a concern on conversion rates. One of the
major benefits to Instagram advertising is the targeting and retargeting technology available
through Facebook.

For example, if you shop on a site and log-in using your Facebook profile - all of that
information including your name, age, location, interests and more will be automatically
cookied and tracked through Facebook and Instagram. Advanced targeting is what, in the long
run, is likely to have the biggest impact on paid Facebook and Instagram advertising efforts.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Twitter:
Organic & Paid Marketing

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 53

Twitter: Organic Marketing


Twitter is similar to Pinterest in many ways, especially in that users follow others they do not
know in order to keep up with what is interesting and cool. At the same time, while Pinterest
is now seen as more of a shopping engine, Twitter is best categorized as more of a source to
get the latest news and updates as it happens in real time―a “fire hose” of information. Also,
while Pinterest is an extremely visual tool, Twitter is focused mainly on text.

So what does this mean in the eCommerce world? When developing Pinterest strategies, the
image is your focus, but when developing Tweets for your brand, clever copy should be Twitter lost a share of
your focus. its % of traffic driven
to eCommerce sites
If the following best practices for Twitter are used, you’ll be set-up to take full advantage of from 2013-2015
opportunities to generate more traffic on Twitter. While you can include images up to 5mb,
copy is the part of a tweet that needs to make an impact. Remember, you have just 140
characters to do this, so make sure it’s clever, clear, and inclusive of a call to action. In the
Pinterest section we shared that hashtags aren’t very valuable on this network. The opposite is
true on Twitter, where the hashtag was first popularized. Utilize hashtags to help categorize
your Tweet for Twitter searchers.

AddShoppers’ network stats show that Twitter’s impact on eCommerce remains heavy, but has
decreased slightly, most likely due to recent Pinterest growth. Unlike Pinterest, Twitter lost a
share of its overall percentage of traffic driven to eCommerce sites from 2013 to 2015: 44%
and 34% respectively.

All time and across all verticals, Pinterest traffic converts at 0.62% on average with a $159.40
average order value.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 54

Twitter: Paid Advertising


There are three types of Twitter Ads:

Promoted Trends
1
Promoted Trends put a sponsored topic at the top of Twitter’s “trending topics” box,
which reflects the most-discussed topics on Twitter at any given time.

Promoted Accounts
2 Twitter suggests users for people to follow; promoted accounts puts these accounts
at the top of the queue and are a way for brands to gain more followers.

Promoted Tweets
3 This is the big one. Promoted Tweets are tweets that are ads. They show up at the top
of searches on related topics, at the top of a user’s timeline when the user follows the
account and, soon, everywhere.

PRO-TIP: Promoted Tweets are the type of campaigns that drive conversions. Targeting will be
the key to success in terms of advertisers ROI and user acceptance.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 55

Paid Twitter Campaign Objectives include:

Website Clicks or App Installs or Followers Tweet


Conversions Engagements Engagements

Targeting

Twitter campaigns provide robust targeting options to reach your ideal customers based on
their interest, demographics, device types, behaviors and more. Targeting options currently
available include:

• Device, Carrier, and new mobile user targeting

• Event Targeting

• Geo, gender, and language targeting,


• Installed App Category targeting

• Interest and username targeting

• Keyword targeting

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 56

Budget

Marketers can select or create a few Tweets to promote and set a budget. There’s no minimum
spend level and you will only pay for results that align to your campaign objective.

Example: Website and Conversion Campaigns―only pay for clicks that send a user to your
website from your Tweet.

As mentioned in the Twitter Organic Advertising section, the Twitter community wants instant
news on sports, music, politics, etc. As paid advertisers, the marketing strategy with Twitter is
slightly different compared to other social networks such as Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.

A good way to explain paid advertising on Twitter is to think of a sports retailer who sells team
jerseys. If you monitor sports closely, you will see trends specifically during certain game times.
For example, if the Patriots win the playoffs at 2pm on Sunday, you might want to run a special
offer (at that day and time) advertising Patriots gear to excited fans talking about the big win.

Best Practices

Avoid Suggested Bids

Similar to Facebook and Instagram, retailers should avoid using Twitter’s suggested bids. This
amount is typically inflated.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 57

Leverage Hashtags

Hashtags are another great way for Twitter users to find your advertisement. This is also
replicated in the organic Twitter advertising section and Instagram advertising.

Monitor Traffic & Use A/B Testing

Advertisers should monitor the amount of traffic their ads receive. Start with a modest
monthly budget and try out various call to actions such as shop now vs. buy now. Track your
results so you will have a better idea of what advertising efforts prove to be a success.

Twitter Paid Advertising Requirements

Twitter Paid Advertising Set Up Includes:

1 Select your business objective

2 Choose your target audience

3 Set up a budget

4 Measure and optimize results

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 58

Step 1
PRO-TIP: You will not be
able to change Country &
• Drop down on the right side―select Twitter Ads
Time Zone setting once it
• Update Country & Time Zone Settings is saved.

Step 2

• Select Campaign Objective―Website clicks or Conversions (7 total campaign objective)

• Create Campaign―This is a 4 step process.

Retailers should definitely take advantage of Twitter’s expanded call to action buttons since
they typically have more options to choose from rather than just “shop now”.

Twitter’s targeting capability is also advanced and retailers have the opportunity to go beyond
targeting just females or males. Instead, Twitter advertisers can target live events such as
The Emmys or the Super Bowl. They can also target specific Twitter handles to capture traffic
related to specific social media influencers.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 59

Although Twitter continues to reign as one of social media’s heavy hitters, it does not
necessarily have the same impact as Facebook and Instagram advertising, specifically in the
areas of retail.

The paid advertising program has been around for quite some time, so it is considered
advanced. Yet, many marketers see Twitter as a small advertising paid channel with low
volume, low conversions and average CPCs (average.40 per click). Although the one area we
have seen significant growth is in impression share.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Final Takeaways:
How to Drive Traffic & Increase ROI

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 61

Final Takeaways: How to Drive


Traffic & Increase ROI
Obviously, the end goal behind investing all of this time and money on social is to drive large
numbers of consumers in the shopping mindset to your eCommerce site. When shoppers first
arrive on your site, they’ll be near the top of the purchase funnel―for many, it might be their
first interaction with your brand. You’re probably wondering how can you keep these shoppers
engaged with your brand throughout their journey to a purchase, and more importantly, make
sure they buy from you.
We suggest serving
Here are our top strategies to make the most of social referral traffic when it comes to driving up an offer that's just
maximum sales and ROI. We suggest encouraging your brand’s social AND eCommerce for visitors from the
teams to work together to help make this possible. social network they
came from.

1. Personalized Offers

A great place to start is by offering special deals for shoppers coming from specific social
channels. This personalizes the shopping experience, driving higher conversion rates.

Keep in mind that visitors from these networks, especially Facebook and Instagram, are
arriving with a high amount of social proof. Don’t miss your opportunity to capitalize on this!

We suggest serving up an offer that’s just for visitors from the social network they came from.
Treat them like the special shoppers they are and give them a discount that’s just for them, in
exchange for a valuable piece of information: their email address.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 62

Now, you get something you want, their contact info, and they get
something they want, a discount. Because they have a coupon in their
possession, there’s a much higher likelihood that this shopper will
eventually convert. However, keep in mind that this is a buyer who is much
higher in the funnel than someone coming from Google, for example, so it
might take some time to eventually convert the sale. This is why the email This modal captures
capture is so important―now you can follow up with a strong email series +29% more emails
(more on this in strategy #2). than a non-
customized offer
targeting same traffic
Here’s An Example Of How This Looks in Practice

Rosenberry Rooms utilizes this strategy for Pinterest. Here’s how their
campaign works:

If someone finds one of their products on Pinterest and clicks through to


view it on their eCommerce store, a special modal appears with a Pinterest
specific offer.

As marketing experts, we have witnessed a shift from the sharing of advice


on social networks about products to the development of specific shopping
features, designated to increase clicks and conversions. From Buyable Pins
to Product Ads, all four of these social channels are actively developing new
shopping features and will continue to progress in 2016.

What about results? This modal capture 29% more emails than a
non-customized offer targeting the same traffic.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 63

2. Email Drip Campaigns

Once you’re able to capture the email addresses of visitors coming from social networks like
Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram, try sending out network specific email drips post opt-in.
For example, email your Top Pins, Posts, or Photos of the week along with what’s trending on
each network and on your site.

You can even provide a recap of best selling items and create more urgency through use of
specific language. For example “Here are the Top 10 most pinned products this week. Only 4
left in stock of item X―get yours now!”

Finally, mix in some gentle reminders about the coupon code they received for opting into
your newsletter to help create sales. For example, “Don’t forget to use your 10% off coupon!”.

3. Retargeting

Because these social networks are going to drive a lot of traffic that’s higher in the purchase
funnel (“lookers”), they are going to need re-engagement. While our first strategy recommends
capturing an email address, this isn’t the only way to re-engage these visitors.

Retargeting is another tactic that works extremely well here. Since they arrived from a social
network, speak their language and utilize top pinned/posted items, lifestyle images, or brand
stories to create ads. A solid retargeting strategy plus strong email marketing (mentioned
above) are the key to converting your social traffic.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 64

Here’s a visual representation of the traffic loop we recommend setting up:

Shop Now

Pinterest/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter Your Site Retargeting Ad Your Site

Want to add an additional boost to your retargeting campaigns? Show a special Facebook,
Pinterest, or Instagram offer as a call-to-action in retargeting ads, similar to the personalized
modal we showed in strategy #1 above.

Something like “Get 10% off your first purchase” is enough to give these potential customers
the boost they need to go ahead and buy something from your brand. (Even better, if you
require an email address for the coupon, now you can feed your email marketing engine from
strategy #2 above to go along with your retargeting strategy.)

4. Social Contests

A final on-site strategy for engaging on-site traffic via social is using a Social Contest. Since this
segment of traffic is already very familiar with the act of Pinning, sharing, or posting, direct
them to a contest built around these actions. For example, a “Pin to Win” giveaway, or a “Share
Your Wishlist” contest.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


The Retailer's Guide To Social Commerce Channels | 65

There’s a lot of flexibility with these promotions, but here’s how we generally run these types
of giveaways for maximum results:

1 Participants enter contest by connecting via social login or entering their name & email

Once entered, the participant shares products or pages from the site to the social
2 network of their choice and receives one additional entry per share

3 Award lucky winner(s) with their prize at the end of the contest

There’s a bit more happening here than meets the eye. Let’s take a closer look at step 1 and 2:

Step 1

This allows you to capture new leads as people enter the giveaway.

Step 2

The sharing activity helps (a) give shoppers a chance to browse the catalog, (b) drive additional
traffic to your products in the future and (c) helps spread the contest to a wider audience by
sharing the contest itself to social networks like Facebook.

As you can see, Social Contests are a great way to drive social engagement that captures leads
and encourages viral sharing behavior.

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


What Now?

Your Complimentary Retail Search Evaluation


CPC Strategy’s Retail Search Evaluation is a complimentary 60-minute analysis and assessment of a retailer's existing
Google Shopping campaign architecture, targeting settings, product feed, product pages, and profitability metrics.

Schedule My Evaluation

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers


Generate More Revenue
From Social Marketing
AddShoppers helps leading retailers utilize on-site influencer marketing to identify and engage their top
advocates as well as increase their website's revenue per visitor. Join a live demo to see our platform in
action and learn how it can help you drive more revenue.

Join a Live Demo

© Copyright CPC Strategy & AddShoppers

You might also like